


Not All Lost

by UnFunny (Quippy)



Series: Parables of Promise [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Clan of two, Din Djaren deserves nice things, Everyone lives, Except for those storm troopers, Gen, I did not proof read this at all, I'm so sorry, IG has feelings he just doesn't know what to do with them, M/M, not quite a fix-it fic so much as a "I wish this is what happened" fic, outside of them everyone lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:19:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quippy/pseuds/UnFunny
Summary: The Armorer tasked Din to restock his munitions while IG took care of the scouting party of Imps that made it down to the forge. She nodded to Paz who moved to grab something from a separate table, turning to show Din the gleaming unpainted jetpack he held. Too small by half for Paz’s large frame, but suitable for Din.“I know you trained some when we were young.” Paz said, “I’ll teach you how to use this properly when you return.” The larger Mandalorian left no room for argument. Din nodded, understanding the words Paz didn’t say. (Return, come back alive.)“Thank you.” He said. (I will.) A promise he hoped he could make.In which those loved are not lost, not everything is destroyed, and a familiar face waits with the Armorer in the Covert. The first in a larger collection taking place in the same AU.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), IG-11 (Star Wars) & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) & Paz Vizla, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Paz Vizla
Series: Parables of Promise [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612648
Comments: 36
Kudos: 434





	Not All Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to rewrite Redemption just, ever so slightly, to make it both a little happier/more hopeful and also to feed my craving for more Paz/Din (and also to launch into a larger au series bases off the changes made here). I already have some stuff written that takes place after this fic, though it will likely take me a bit to get it posted.
> 
> Update: This is now the first of the Parables of Promise series!  
> Th title of the series is from the song "Mothers and Fathers" by Dom Fera which for reasons I can't quite put a finger on always makes me think of Din and the Tribe when I listen to it.

Kuiil wasn't moving when IG-11 found him.

A blaster shot singed through the clothes that Kuiil wore, burning a black hole into the Ugnaught’s back. The damage was extensive and life threatening. But Kuill wasn’t dead, not yet.

It was easy to lift the body up and bring him to the ship. Once, the droid’s body had been made to fight and to kill and to haul bounties in no matter their size. Cradling one injured Ugnaught was a simple task in comparison. As was settling him down in the temporary medical station the IG unit had setup earlier while waiting for either everyone’s return or the call to join the fray.

Medical programing demanded the droid to focus all available attention on the injured party before him, clean and care for the wound, stabilize the patient. Remain to monitor his condition while he recovered.

There was a conflict though. Giving Kuiil the medical attention required required time. Time IG-11 did not have. The child had been taken. Already the programming strained, fighting to pull the mechanical body away from the injured Ugnaught and towards its charge. The droid resisted though.

Kuiil would die without medical intervention. 

And IG-11, soulless and solitary in its unique existence, could not process such an event.

The droid forced mechanical hands to move towards the Ughnaught’s body. An application of Bacta spray, an IV to provide more on a timer. It would have to be enough. The child was in danger, and IG-11 couldn’t risk staying longer than he already had. The robotic body turned on its legs, moving in it’s familiar stiff gate towards its goal. Hope was not something droids were capable of understanding, and a soulless construct had no ability to feel such ephemeral things as _emotions_. 

Something hummed inside the droid’s body anyway though. Not a program he’d been manufactured with or one Kuill had implanted. A thread of code, a droid’s thoughts in a crude understanding of it, circled the injured Ughnaut. Ones and Zeroes fell into place in the same line of inactionable coding, something his programming was not meant to conjure coming to life in his processing units.

He wanted his friend to live.

* * *

The Covert was abandoned.

The once cramped tunnels where his Tribe lived in hiding were echoing and cold, but not entirely empty. There were the burns of blaster shots signed the walls interlaced with splatters of blood. A vibroblade laying on the floor, blade broken in half. The worst was the armor, piled in small heaps. Breastplates and pauldrons and bracers in lopsided stacks, Beskar gleaming beneath where paint had been scratched away by battle.

There were no no helmets. Though he didn’t know if that was a relief or not. Finding them meant that his brothers and sisters had truly been slain, but their absence in the face of all the other abandoned armor could only mean that their Helms had been stolen as trophies.

His hand shook as he lowered himself down and pulled a pauldron from the pile. Painted dark blue with the mark of a stylized Mandalorian Screech Hawk. The mark of the Death’s Watch, this specific one the mark of Clan Vizla. Blood, dark and old and dried in place splattered over it like a star field. He felt his stomach churn, gloved fingers tracing over the mark.

 _Paz_.

His heart clenched.

Cara’s voice was low and oddly gentle as she spoke. “We should go.” She urged. His hands clenched on the pauldron, tight enough to _hurt_ as the Beskar dug into his gloved palms.

“You go.” He didn’t look at her, or at the droid who gently carried the child in tow. It’d be the last he saw them. “Take the ship. I can’t leave it this way.”

Greef shifted behind him and through the haze of pain and loss anger blazed to life. He snapped his head in the man’s direction, lurching to his feet with the paldron still in hand as he advanced on the older man. “Did you know about this? Was this the work of your _beroya_?” Greef denied, shaking his head as he laid out the ways of the guild. No prize, no fighting. The hunters weren’t zealots. The words fell flat and meaningless on Din’s ears. His hand fisted around the pauldron and he shoved at the other man, “Did you know about this?!?”

Cara moved to intercede and break up the fight before it began, but it was the deep familiar voice that echoed behind him that yanked Din from his rage with a hard tug.

“You’re even more of a _di’kut_ than I thought if you think we’d be taken out by some Hunters.” Paz said, voice casual and gentle despite his words. Din spun, feeling as if all the air had been pulled from his lungs as he laid eyes on the taller Mandalorian. It took him a moment to even notice the Armorer as she moved behind the larger warrior, her gate even as she came to stand before the pile of armor.

“We revealed ourselves.” She said, gently plucking a few pieces of Beskar from the pile. “We knew what could happen if we left the Covert.” She rose, moving to drop the armor she held into a cart Din hadn’t noticed before. It brimmed with yet more Armor, but still he saw no Helms. “The Imperials arrived shortly thereafter. This,” She motioned to the pile of armor and the cart brimming with yet more. “Is what resulted.”

“How many?” He asked, feeling the weight of each piece of armor. How many had died because of him? Because of the choices he’d made, the risk he’d taken?

Paz shifted towards Din and the group behind him. “Four of the elders earned a warrior's death.” He said, solemness and pride mingling. “There were injuries, but we were prepared enough for them that loses were at a minimum.”

Din felt dizzy, from his previous injuries or the overwhelming relief that he had not caused the death of their entire tribe. To lose four of the elders was a blow, but he knew that dying in the name of protecting the Tribe would have been the death they wanted, strived for even. Four in the face of the fifty-seven of their Tribe was a blow, but not a death knell. 

“What’s with the armor then?” Cara asked, nudging a bracer with her boot. Her hand was firmly on her gun, but she’d accepted the other two Mandos as allies as soon as she’d seen the relief in Din’s shoulder.

“Damaged.” Din answered, able to see it now as he looked down at the pile with a clearer mind. “Or left to make moving to the new Covert unseen easier.” He glanced up at Paz, then the Armorer. “You should come with us. The Imps will find our path down here.”

“No.” The Armorer said, voice easy as she gathered up more of the abandoned armor from the pile for the cart. “I will not abandon this place until I have salvaged what remains.” She didn’t look at them as she began pushing the hovering cart in the direction of the Forge, but Din and Paz both understood the unspoken command to follow anyway. The others trailed behind, uncertain, IG in particular with his metallic arms wrapped a little more tightly around the baby than perhaps strictly necessary. Din felt relief at the droid for his protectiveness over the child, even if part of him rankled at the notion that one of the Tribe could ever be considered a threat to an infant.

Paz hung back by the forge entrance as they entered, earning a side eye from Cara while Greef cast his gaze over the dim room. Din stood back, hovering between Paz and IG-11. In his makeshift carrier, the child stared with wide, fascinated eyes as the Armorer began feeding one a Beskar breastplates to the forge, melting it down to be cast into smaller, more transportable ingots.

“Show me the one whose safety deemed our retreat from this place.” The Armorer said, turning her ornate helm onto Din. 

He motioned towards the bag that IG wore, and both the Matriarch and Paz moved over to inspect the child as he answered. “This is the one.”

Paz spoke first, helmet tilting as he looked at the little on in the bag. “This is the one you hunted then saved?” He sounded incredulous, though his voice was gentle as he peered down at the baby. Paz had always been good with the Foundlings, kind and gentle to them even as he remained on of the fiercest of their numbers.

“Yes.” Din answered, “And the one that saved me as well.” Paz glanced up sharply, surprise evident. Din kept his gaze level with the larger man from behind his helm.

“From the Mudhorn?” The Armorer asked, stepping forward again until she was standing before the droid, head tilted down so that she could stare directly at the child in question. Din nodded, not trusting his voice as the Tribe Matriarch studied the child that had been in his care for so long. “It looks helpless.” She said, a softness entering her voice as she reached out and set a gloved hand on the edge of the bag the child sat in. The baby cooed at her, ears down as it raised its large eyes to meet the dark vizor of her helm.

“He’s injured, but not helpless.” Din told her, glancing up to Paz as he did. “It’s species can move objects with their minds.”

The Armorer ran a finger over the child’s wrinkled forehead, earning another coo from the infant as she did. After a moment she stepped back, moving towards the forge once more. “I know of such things.” She said, causing Paz and Din both to turn and look at her in surprise. She moved with purpose around the forge, gathering tools as she spoke. “The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore The Great and an order of sorcerers called _Jetii_ that fought with such powers.”

“It is an enemy?” Paz sounded disbelieving as he took a step forward, reaching out a massive hand to run a finger over one of the child’s large ears. Protectiveness hummed as surely through the larger Mandalorian as it did Din. Enemy or no, no harm would come to the child while either man stood, this they could both agree.

“ _No._ ” The Armorer answered, turning to look at the two Mandalorians as they hovered over the child, the droid curling protective arms around it. “His kind were enemies, but this one is not.” She turned back to the forge, carefully gathering precious molten Beskar into a ladle before moving over to one of her work benches. 

Din took a half step towards her, “You know what he is?”

She didn’t look at him as she ladled the silver metal into a mold. Her voice, when she spoke, sparked with delight. “He is a _foundling.”_ She said, “By creed, he is in your care. Until he is of age to take the Creed or until he is united with his people, you are as his father.” 

The baby gurgled, a smile pulling at chubby green cheeks as a little clawed hand reached for Din, seeming to understand the Armorer’s words and to be pleased by them. A heavy hand clapped upon Din’s shoulder and he turned to find Paz looking down at him. The taller Mandalorian’s helmet hid his face, but Din could feel the smile all the same.

Cara stepped forward, reminded them of the Imps. Plans were made, a river to the lava flats, a chance for them to get out. Greef urged them onward and Din hesitated.

“I’m staying. I need to heal, and I need to help them.” He said, nodding to the two members of his Tribe.

The Armorer stuck her hammer once on the item she was crafting, “You must go.” She said, brokering no room for argument. “A Foundling is in your care. You are his father and he needs your protection.”

The hand on Din’s shoulder squeezed tightly once, reassuring, and he turned to find Paz standing tall and certain beside him. “This is the Way.” He said, deep voice low, thrumming through Din’s chest like the rumble of a storm. Words said time and time again, but changed in the wake of all that had happened. Warmth bloomed in his chest.

“You have earned your Signet.” The Armorer said, at length allowing them the moment. Paz stepped back and she moved easily to take his place at Din’s side. Din felt pride swell in him as she afixed the signet to his pauldron, gaze turning to look at the child - his foundling. The baby’s ears twitched as he babbled in excitement. The Mudhorn gleamed on his pauldron, still warm. 

“You are a clan of two.”

The moment of peace was lost in the wake of an explosion, too close for comfort. 

The Armorer tasked Din to restock his munitions while IG took care of the scouting party of Imps that made it down to the forge. She nodded to Paz who moved to grab something from a separate table, turning to show Din the gleaming unpainted jetpack he held. Too small by half for Paz’s large frame, but suitable for Din.

“I know you trained some when we were young.” Paz said, “I’ll teach you how to use this properly when you return.” The larger Mandalorian left no room for argument. Din nodded, understanding the words Paz didn’t say. _Return, come back alive._

“Thank you.” He said, _I will_. A promise he hoped he could make.

Leaving was a heartbreak. The Imps would come down hard and fast on the abandoned Covert. There was no convincing them though. The Armorer’s duty was to see everything salvageable brought to the new Covert, anything less would be a failure. And Paz had sworn himself her guard while she completed her task, duty bound to aid her until her work was done. Neither could leave, and Din had no real right to ask it of them. He had his own responsibilities. To the child, his son.

There was a Foundling in his care and he would not let any more harm come to him, even if it meant killing every last Imp in the galaxy with his bare hands.

* * *

There was a platoon of Imps waiting for them at the end of the lava river. Too many to fight and no way of turning back.

“They will not be satisfied with anything less than the child.” IG said, “This is unacceptable.” He swiveled his visual sensors over them before turning his attention fully on the child in his arms. “I will eliminate the enemy and you will escape.”

Din Djarin waived the statement away, frustrated. “You wouldn’t get to daylight.” He said, turning his attention back to the tunnel ahead of them, the circle of light that led to the outside world and the awaiting storm troopers. IG could read the uptic in the man’s heart rate, the worry and the fear, the anger. The Mandalorian was willing to do anything to protect the child in his care - his son, as IG had updated the little one’s status as. It was something IG could understand all too well.

Cara Dune prepared for a last stand, and IG made a decision.

“I still have the security protocols from my manufacturer.” He told Din. “If my designs are compromised I must self-destruct.”

The Mandalorian’s heart rate skipped a beat at that announcement, and IG’s scans read the rising anxiety in him as Din spoke, “What are you talking about?” The man dug his heels in, stubborn as they went back and forth. “Grab a blaster and help us blast our way out.”

If IG was programed with such a thing, he would have shaken his head sadly. “Victory through combat is impossible. We will be captured, the child will be lost.” The section of code that had been fixated on Kuill flared. The child had been injured in the time IG had taken to attend to Kuill’s wounds. Wounds that had likely killed Kuill based on the fact that they had not heard anything from him since before his injury. He had nearly failed once before. He would not fail again.

“Listen, you’re not going anywhere, we need you.” Sadness. Din Djarin, IG registered, who hated droids with a burning passion, was registering as feeling _sadness_ at the prospect of IG’s destruction. “Let’s just come up with a -”

“Please tell me the child will be safe in your care.”

Droids could not plead. Some were programmed in such a way as they could pretend, but they could not feel the emotions necessary to properly express the action. IG’s program distantly circled the fact that there was something then, in his words that was more than just code and logic. Something not accounted for in his programming. “If you do so, I can default to my secondary command.”

“We need you.”

He can almost construct what Din Djarin’s face looks like under the helmet. The expression on the face he’d briefly seen while tending to his wounds. Sadness and heartbreak. “There’s nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive.”

“I’m not sad.” Din Djarin said. And of all the lies the Mandalorian had ever told in his life, IG imagined that those words had been the boldest.

His response - a reminder that IG was a nurse droid, that he could tell very well just what Din Djarin was feeling - was lost to a sudden wave of blaster fire at the end of the tunnel. They all went on alert, darting down for cover as blasters were raised. The blaster fire wasn’t directed at them though. The storm troopers were screaming, some of them being blasted into the lava flow to be consumed by heat and slag. In moments the entire platoon of troopers were down.

They all glanced at each other, bewildered.

“I apologize for being late my friends.” A familiar voice lifted over their comms. 

_“Kuill?”_ Din Djarin called, bewildered. The sorrow in his voice chased away for the notes of bright hope. The boat they were in drifted out of the tunnel slowly, and they broke into daylight just in time to see the Razor Crest land a bit awkwardly on one of the banks of the lava river.

“It took some time to work out the controls of this ship. Razor Crest’s are fine vessels but not ones I have experience with.” Kuill’s voice sounded tired, but through the transparisteel of the view screen they could see him waving from the pilot’s seat. “The configuration for your comm system should be completely redone.” He added as they all carefully climbed from the boat to the solid ground.

IG, as a droid, could not feel emotions. There was, however, something in the code of his processors that defied the logic of his programming. Something he might even call _relief_ and _happiness_ at the knowledge that his friend was alive.

And then Moff Gideon arrived in a tie fighter and that fledgling concept of _feeling_ was shut down in attempts of protecting the child once more.

* * *

Gideon’s first shot disabled the Crest. Not enough to destroy it, thank the stars. Din knew his ship well enough to be able to tell that should they even make it to the ship without being shot down, they would only end up trapping themselves inside a metal tomb. The Crest had blasters on her that could take out the tie fighter fine, but the ability to target and fire on the fighter while grounded was next to zero.

Din grabbed for the Rising Phoenix. 

“Get the kid to the ship.” He told IG. The Crest was down, but as old as the shield were it was still safer than being out in the open. The Droid didn’t hesitate, darting to the open ramp at a speed that was a little terrifying to see out of a machine that at times looked barely able to walk. 

Cara lifted her repeating blaster at the tie fighter. “Whatever you’re planning you better do it quick.” She told him, sending shot after useless shot towards the Imperial ship to offer any kind of cover she could. He nodded and keyed the command into his bracer, brining the Rising Phoenix at his back to life.

If he survived, Paz was _absolutely_ going to kill him.

The Tie fighter grew closer, green blaster shots raining down. Din took a breath, then _launched_ himself straight up into the air. The force of the jet pack was more than he remembered it being as a boy in the few weeks he’d been given the basic training on the equipment. He’d been ungainly and uncoordinated in the air as a child, moving to train at other equipment he’d felt better suited to as soon as he could. Paz, still massive even when they’d been young, had been the one who showed surprising grace in the air. Able to move and maneuver with surprising elegance even in those first few days.

Din, never terribly gifted with the Phoenix in the first place and now decades out of practice, could only aim for the general direction of _up_ and then depend on his grappling line to to the rest. In hindsight, he considered as he was flung wildly behind the tie fighter then slammed hard against the outer casing of the ship with another short burst from the Phoenix, it wasn’t his best plan.

Not as bad as simply _letting go_ of the tie fighter after the detention charge had been placed, perhaps.

The tie fighter exploded and went down hard into the distant wastes, at least. Though the Phoenix, it seemed, was entirely done with taking commands from Din’s flailing, falling body. He was left to plummet some several hundred meters to what he imagined would be his painful death, hoping that the child was safe.

Anything else was lost as something solid and heavy collided with him.

Not the ground - as he very briefly thought it might be - but a body. Large and strong, two armored arms wrapping around his middle and snatching him out of free fall with a jolt. It was still painful - particularly when his helmet knocked painfully against the other’s - but he wasn’t about to complain any time soon.

“ And here I thought you would stop with the _jaro_ shit when you became a _Buir_.” Paz said, his voice lacking any real bite. 

Din, despite himself, laughed and nearly caused the older man to drop him. Paz swore as he shifted his hold, trying to adjust his grip on Din’s smaller frame so he didn’t risk the other Mandalorian plummeting to the ground once more. It was an awkward adjustment, made trickier by the fact that even the slightest unplanned moved caused the Phoenix to tilt and wheel petulantly at Paz’s back. The jet packs were meant to carry a full grown Mandalorian and some extra, but not - typically - meant to carry _two_ full grown Mandalorians.

After a moment Paz and Din managed to get sorted, Paz’s arms tight around Din’s waist, as Din threw his arms up around Paz’s shoulders. Paz, comfortable that they wouldn’t end up careening into a mountain, tilted his large body and adjusting their trajectory to swing back around towards the Razor Crest and Din’s companion’s far below.

IG had returned outside with the Child, an injured Kuill seated a bit painfully on the ramp as they all watched Paz and Din make their decent. Din dropped his hands from Paz’s shoulders as they made it to solid land. It took Paz perhaps a moment longer for the larger Mandalorian to release his hold on Din’s waist, leaving them standing perhaps a little closer then they normally would.

“ _Vor entrye_.” He said to Paz, trying to encompass just how much he meant with those two words.

Paz nodded. “ _Ba’gedet’ye.”_ He said, quietly. Then, after a pause, punched Din hard in the arm. “Don’t ever do anything that stupid again.”

Din swore, but accepted the rebuke. He’d be dead if Paz hadn’t caught him, and the number of ways he should have died in the attempt of dealing with Gideon was more than stars in the sky. Anything else they might have said to each other was gone with the arrival of the others.

“I think.” Cara said casually as she, IG and Greef made their way over to them. “That might have been you worst plan yet.” She grinned at Paz, something sharp and delighted in her gaze as she met the larger Mandalorian’s gaze. “Nice catch big guy.” 

For reason’s Din couldn’t quite name, he felt like there was more to Cara’s words to Paz. He didn’t have time to think on it though as IG offered up the bag with the child - his _Foundling_ \- inside. His small son was reaching for him, ears twitching as he whining to be cradled and Din complied without argument. Carefully lifting his small child out of his carrier and cradling him close. Paz settled a hand on Din’s shoulder as he moved to peer down at the child. The little one babbled happily, grinning from oversized ear to oversized ear as he did so.

Soon they would need to move again. Check on Kuill and see how he was. Track down the wreckage of Gideon’s ship and ensure that the Imp was dead. Go through the town and clear out any remaining storm troopers. He’d go with Paz after that, back to the abandoned Covert to help the Armorer with her duties.

For the moment, though he allowed himself to settle in the moment of peace. His friends by his sides, safe and whole and his son cradled safely in his arms. Din Djarin found himself content to let the moment settle over him and allow the idea that, for once, the future might be brighter than the shadowed past he’d come from.

**Author's Note:**

> Mandalorian:  
> Beroya - bounty hunter  
> Di’kut - idiot, useless individual, waste of space (lit. someone who forgets to put their pants on)  
> Jetii - Jedi  
> Jaro - death wish, insane act of reckless stupidity  
> Buir - parent  
> Vor entrye - Thank you (lit. *I accept a debt*)  
> Ba’gedet’ye - You're welcome


End file.
